News

Employee Survey shows care partners feelthey can - and do - make a difference

March 14th, 2019

Points West Living (and Connecting Care) employee care partners took part in an extensive survey in early February delving into every aspect of their employment experience. They were asked to measure their experience and impressions of their service in areas including teamwork, health & safety, workload, advancement opportunities and more, in a total of 42 queries. Here are a few highlights of the Points West Living results.

Community participation in survey

Almost 400 participants (71% of employee care partners in Points West Living communities) took the time to do the survey. “We’re very happy with the engagement in providing responses,” says Human Resources Manager, Ginger Bitzer. “The highest community participation was from Athens Creek in Penticton at 100%, followed by Lloydminster at 98%, and Lac La Biche at 97%.”

Positive contribution

One of the most satisfying responses was to the survey statement, ‘I feel I positively contribute to the quality of life for the residents.’ 98.67% of PWL community employee care partnerss responded that they ‘Agree’ or ‘Strongly agree’. No respondent indicated disagreement with this statement (survey page held in photo above). Similar agreement results came from the statement, ‘The services I provide give me meaning and purpose.’

Tenure and vision

Ninety-five percent of respondents plan to continue employment with Points West Living into the future, with 45% indicating they plan to stay beyond 10 years. The responses also show a continued and growing understanding of Points West Living’s Mission, Vision and ‘core values of Individuality, Dignity, Knowledge, and Hospitality...’

System-wide action

As a result of the overal responses, key areas Ginger and her team plan to focus on include: first, employee care partner Growth Plans. “Employee care partners are amazing with connecting with residents,” says Ginger. “We want just the same level of connection with employee care partners. How we connect can be different, but we want connection to be around core values.”

The second area is Occupational Health & Safety. “There has been lots of learning and auditing due to legislative changes, and trying to keep everyone up to speed was a priority prior to the survey,” says Ginger. “But now, we are trying to bring health and safety more into the culture; it needs to be woven in, just like Eden.”

Community-specific action

The survey results have been distilled for each location, and managers along with employee care partners from each Points West Living community are working together to set priorities and goals to work on and to monitor their progress throughout the year.

Photo: (Far right) Ginger Bitzer (Human Resources Manager) led the survey process, along with her team; (from left) Georg Rath (Chief Operating Officer) who assisted the team in evaluating the survey results; Stephanie Miller (Chief Strategy Officer) who helped with the survey wording, process, and messaging; and Kate Hendsbee (Quality Assurance Auditor) who took on the technical challenges of getting the survey online and compiled the survey results in a way they can be filtered for use by teams and individual locations. They each hold a copy of the survey page indicating respondents’ agreement with the statement: ‘I feel I positively contribute to the quality of life for the residents.’